What a different world we live in compared with not so long ago – let’s say February 2020, when COVID hit our shores.
If that wasn’t enough change, the war in the Ukraine was the icing on the proverbial crap cake.
Then, of course, emission promises ramped up as well and the world has turned upside down – hopefully not into a fast-melting iceberg.
Let’s start with the last one: coal mining versus ingredients for battery-powered everything.
It seems that the damage to the environment is, at worst, the same or possibly worse with green power.
How does that make any sense?
The war means we run out of stuff such as petrol and oil, even though we export that overseas.
Hmm … confusing.
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COVID has a lot to answer for, including staff and fruit and veggie shortages.
Yet, for the past couple of years, the farmers were ploughing in their fruit and veggie crops as they couldn’t get any internationals in to pick them.
The Australians were far too busy laying on the lounge, collecting payments from our government.
Then the State Government came up with a genius idea of paying penalty rates from 6pm on Christmas Eve, just to make sure life was really tough for small businesses in hospitality.
So, operators closed their collective doors with a bang at 5.30pm.
Now we are in the great potato crisis, with not a hashbrown in the country, apart from Macca’s, and chips are as rare as honest politicians.
Floods have a fair bit to do with it, apparently, but I am suspicious that the lack of workforce numbers may be to blame as well.
Is lack of spuds another COVID-related issue?
Do spud pickers, like a fair proportion of Aussies since COVID, want to spend more time with their family and their lounge, or do we get spuds from Ukraine and Russia as well?
No idea.
It’s like that old joke about a union meeting, when the rep had the floor.
“Okay, I have got you double pay, double holidays and you only have to work one day a week, every Friday. How good is that?”
There was one reply: “What? We have to work every Friday?”
Welcome to 2023.
Ashley Robinson is a columnist with Sunshine Coast News and My Weekly Preview. His views are his own.
